Adoption
by Archer of Ecclesia
Summary: *This was a request from Hashi Hashi.i*. Jack Frost knew that he would be rid of a mother and father for the remainder of eternity. Yet, perhaps, Mary and North Claus would object to that... they had, after all, literally adopted him as their son.


**A:N: This is my first requested story, for Hashi Hashi, who requested that I do a story were Mrs. Claus and North adopt Jack, something like their own child.**

** This is sort of a continuation of **_**Mrs. Claus**_**, so you might want to read it before this.**

** Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians and I never will, nor do I own the X-Men mentioned in this. Yawn.**

Jack frost stood in front of North's castle, holding his staff in one hand, his other stuffed into his sweatshirt pocket. The wind was blowing his silvery hair in front of his eyes, a whispering invitation to go out and make winter for all the children of the world.

But whoops, too bad. It was freaking spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and it was too warm in the Southern to have any fun. Unless, of course, he wanted to drown the poor penguins in another four feet of snow, he was done for the spring.

The Guardian rapped on the ornamental door with his knuckles, waiting impatiently as someone approached the door. By the sound of the scampering footsteps on the other side and the furious chittering, North had sent the elves to get the door.

The bells on their heads jingled as they giggled madly, and four of the creatures dashed outside, tugging on various parts of Jack's clothing and body. Another one had snuck behind him, poking his back with its sharp fingernails. Did North know what nail-clippers were?

The elves, while annoying and seemingly all males, weren't near as bad as Tooth's fairies, who bugged the hell out of him, always cuddling under his hand and burrowing themselves into his hair.

"Yeah, I'm going! Settle down!" Jack snapped, jerking his wrist free of an elf's grasp, who had bit him.

With only a slight pout, the elf took his teeth out of Jack's arm, then scampered off into the castle.

Jack briskly walked into the castle, paying no mind to the bustling yetis and elves who ran about as if they were on sugar-high. The globe sat in the middle of the room, perching on its golden throne, shining in the radiance of child optimism. The brightest light sat a few miles below Michigan, signifying Jamie and his friends. A small smile crossed Jack's face, even though he had no consciousness of it.

North was bustling around upstairs, carrying a large stack of freshly-wrapped presents. Even through spring had just been reborn out of the ashes of the winter snow, he was still as busy as ever. The huge man in red disappeared into his workshop, Jack following suite a few moments later.

He was still hovering as he pushed the door open, smiling as the burgundy-clad man took a seat on his enormous chair.

Jack lightly tapped the door behind him with his staff, careful not to hold the stick against the golden-rimmed door too long, lest he freeze it. Again.

"Ah! Jack! Come, sit!" North motioned for the edge of his desk, which was no longer supporting the burden of North's complex ice-made train set, which was now sitting on another chair in the corner, magically animated to drive itself.

The boy hovered over to the edge of the table, perching on the sharp corner. The new toy on North's mind was a set of action figures constructed of wood and tightly-compressed snow (magically blessed so that it never melted, and painted to according colors) so that the children thought it was a type of plastic, each carved with care and precision. The three that had been whittled to the point of being recognized were all X-Men, which was another – "geek-dom", as his mother put it – that Jamie enjoyed.

Wolverine was wielding his icicle claws, snarling at Storm, who was floating on a pedestal of ice. The two were being silently observed by a half-finished Professor X, his wheelchair the only non-wood material.

Jack smiled at this. He never suspected that North would have cared for action heroes. Though, the teen thought, they – as in the Guardians – were technically superheroes themselves. Just cooler, and without the hideous uniforms.

"So, Jack, why the visit? Care for cup of cocoa?" North rose from his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, adorned with a smile on his childlike face.

"No, thanks," Jack nearly spat. The last time he tried one of North's confections, the teen had nearly choked on the appalling taste and texture of what the Russian had called 'taffy'.

Jack rose from his seat, hovering in the air, twirling his staff between his fingers. North went back to work on his work, etching a design into the back of Wolverine's uniform. At first, the huge immortal seemed as if he'd be a bull in a china shop, but when he concentrated on constructing his toys, the children never saw something finer.

An elf shuffled into the workshop moments later, his bell tinkling wildly. He was snickering madly, holding a miniature baseball bat in hand. Another elf skittered in right after, a baseball in his hand and a bruise on his forehead.

"Ai! Shoo, shoo, you pests! Bother the yetis!" North hollered over his shoulder. Apparently, occurrences like this were fairly common, elves bursting in and out, having either beaten someone with a toy or having running from someone who was trying to beat him/her with a toy on their so-called 'test runs'.

Elves made everything dangerous.

The creatures left the room, the angered one threatening to beat the other over the head in its garbled language of Elvish.

North shook his head. "Anyway, Jack, why drop by so soon?" North raised an eyebrow. "Spring already?"

Jack nodded. "Unfortunately."

The man nodded. "So staying here for the summer?"

The teen shrugged. "Dunno. Might stay at Tooth's place later in the year, if the hummingbirds leave me alone."

Babytooth, who was currently twittering on Jack's shoulder, squeaked in offense. She clutched the tiny area over her heart in feigned hurt – yet the boy snickered at this. The other mini-fairies had an odd infatuation with him.

Wonder why that was.

Jack ran a hand through his silvery hair, bored out of his mind. He loved hanging around at North's castle, since he was like a father to him, but all he could do at the castle was tease the elves or help the yetis.

"Why don't you go see your room? Finally cleaned it out," North suggested.

The room, which was in a western portion of the castle, had once been a reindeer stall, yet the stalls were moved downstairs after the deer started getting feisty, and Blitzen had broken through the floorboards with his stamping.

Despite the reindeer droppings that had once been in the room, Jack smiled. "Yes, I'll go right now."

Jack levitated higher, Babytooth snuggling into his hood. She tweeted once or twice, then snuggled into his hair, tugging onto one of his locks.

"No, stay put," he responded. She acted as if Jack was her horse, and tugging on his hair meant that he needed to slow down so she could fly back to Tooth's.

The fairy squeaked in annoyance, then crawled down the back of his sweater, making sure that she speared his back with her sharp beak.

Jack zoomed upward, floating over the bustling beings of North's castle. The yetis were hauling vast loads of burlap sacks, warping in and out of portals to collect the toy supplies. The elves, as usual, were getting in the way, scurrying under foot and tagging eachother.

The immortal floated over all of the mayhem, occasionally smirking as he did so. Mrs. Claus sometimes supervised the creatures once Christmas time rolled around, but otherwise, she was either attending to the reindeer or cooking.

Once the boy reached the door decorated with gold, he gently pushed a wind out of his staff, which eddied around him before bursting its way into the room.

Inside, the walls were rather drab, nothing more than plain, wooden boards that had been stripped of all color. The floor was still slightly messy, an occasionally strand of straw here or there, but thank the Man on the Moon that the room finally got to smelling better than the reindeer that used to live in there.

A small bed had been shoved into the corner of the room, the sheets a thick, luxurious type, a deep blue covered in snowflakes. Two pillows were stacked against the headboard, which had the name 'Jack' carved onto it, French curves above and below the neat manuscript.

It felt as if a sledgehammer head been driven into the center of Jack's chest.

His room... his family, his sister, his _damn life_, was suddenly flooding back. He wasn't really living, he was immortal, and to think of it, his immortality had stolen every single thing he ever held dear from him...

...with the cold, icy hands of his powers.

Jack felt a tear fall down his cheek before it froze halfway down the bone. His blue eyes searched the room, no longer seeing the ornate bed, but a small one made of crudely-cut wood that he shared with his younger siblings when they were too scared to sleep alone.

Pitch had been behind those frights, but in the back of his mind, Jack had found himself thanking him for that... every single precious moment he had spent with his family as a human mattered to him.

And no matter how long he would live to be, he would never, _ever _have a family again...

Jack felt himself scream as a hand clapped down on his shoulder.

He whirled around and thwacked his attacker with his cane, only to find that it was Mrs. Claus right in the middle of the swing. The woman was hit in the side of the head with the shepherd-like cane, yet according to her reaction, it had been no more than a twig.

The woman payed no mind to the pain, just gave her head a slight shake and cocked an eyebrow. "Jack, why you so scared?"

His heart was using a jackhammer against his ribcage. Because he had just been ripped out of his mortal life, that was freaking why! "No reason... thanks for the room, though."

Mrs. Claus (or, as her proper name, Mary) smiled in the slightest, the scars near her mouth stretching out, becoming even more prominent and white. "Well, good you like. Redesign as you please, just do not move bed. Reindeer use corner as litter box."

Jack's nose wrinkled in slight disgust. So he would be sleeping over a reindeer toilet... that was comforting.

The boy approached the bed, trying desperately – and failing – not to think of what his bedding area had been used for.

Except the moment he hit the mattress for a test run, he was blacked out like a snuffed candle.

/0-0/

Jack Frost awoke with a terrible case of a stiff back. That, unfortunately, was part of being a half-frozen being. His staff was still in his hand, a nasty taste in his mouth.

His back refusing to crack as he rose, Jack rolled his head from side to side, grumbling when his joints still refused to loosen themselves up.

For some reason, Jack was still as tired as anything, yet he had gotten up. That was odd. Yet a furious scratching came up, one of a crazed elf. The being starting chittering, and Jack could barely decipher "Wakey" and "North" in his rant.

"I'm coming, dammit," he muttered under his breath.

The creature, however, didn't understand the phrase 'Wait' and came barreling in, breathless and red in the face, frosting-like paste adorning his chin and chocolate smeared around his mouth.

"Agga-bootcha help!" The elf screeched, scrambling blindly toward Jack, who simply stopped the elf's beeline with his staff, holding him still long enough to ask him to repeat what he said.

Just as the tiny being whimpered and shook his head, another elf – this one with a disgruntled look on his face – stormed into the room, a dirtied wooden spoon in one hand, an empty bowl – aside a few spots of cookie dough – in the other.

The elf wordlessly dropped the bowl, stomped over to the other, who was now whining and attempting to disappear behind Jack's leg – and promptly beat him over the head with the spoon, acting so vicious that Jack thought he might as well be mad enough to take the thief's heart out with the kitchen utensil.

Dull things hurt, after all.

Though, considering the immortal's peaceful nature, he grabbed the attacker by the back of his hood and lifted him off the ground, which was no task, shy of the monster's rabid flailing.

After only a minute or two of the elf's monstrous fighting did it decide that it was going to play fair and bite his way out of his situation.

"OW! Knock it off! Apologize!" The elf in his hand crossed its arms over its chest, wrinkling his ugly face up. The one on the ground stuck out its tongue and blew the other a raspberry, then let out a maniacal laugh and proceeded to seize the bowl and finish licking it clean.

Jack nudged the creature in the back with his foot – just enough to send the creature into a series of clumsy stumbles, but not enough to knock him over and send the spoon through the back of his throat or get it speared through his eye – yet that was seemingly against what the elf's dramatics wanted.

The elf – his name was Jingles, as it had been embroidered on the back of his suit in thin, green stitching – took a drastic stumble, sending the spoon flying from his hand, the wooden utensil clattering across the floorboards.

It landed at a pair of feet, which Jack had been staring down at – ever so slowly, as a hint of bile rose in his throat from fear, he glanced upward.

Standing in the doorway, arms crossed and a stern look on her face, was Mary. "Jack! No bullying the elves! Send them bad messages!"

The elf in his hands writhed his way out and scampered over to Mrs. Claus, shivering and clutching her form like a sailor lost at sea who was clinging to a buoy. Jack's anger flared as the con-artist elf stuck his tongue out of his mouth.

_That _one had tested a few too many toys, likely the electric ones.

"But–"

"No buts! I thought you were Guardian! No objection! Stay in bed or leave!" Mary snapped, and the lying elf and Jingles giggled maniacally, the chef somehow forgetting his rage at Jingles' craving for raw cookie dough.

Or, not entirely, as a frantic scream was heard at the end of the hallway.

Mrs. Claus didn't even roll her eyes or shake her head at the antics of these creatures – she just sighed, then thundered down the hallway, her voice projecting loud enough to shatter the boy's eardrums as she scolded the elves in Russian.

Whether or not the madmen understood her, Jack had no idea, but that wasn't his business. They got punished as well, so for the time being, he was very, _very_ content with himself.

/0-0/

Jack's amusement, however, soon dissolved like his snowmen armies in the springtime snow. Boredom overtook the boy, and needless to say, Mary was eternally an adult, and he was eternally a teen, so the two were not only bitter rivals, but they were much closer, like the bond between scary mother and hormonal son.

In one hand, he was the damn Guardian of Freakin' Fun, so he had to eventually leave the castle and skirt the upper part of America and England, maybe even Asia, with another snow storm. Yet in the other, in which common sense and reason resided, Mary Claus was a terrifying woman with terrifying strength, and Jack valued his sanity.

Or what little he had left of it.

So he sat in his room for hours. Or twenty minutes. Either way, the time lapses were extremely long and always stretched themselves out when one was in trouble.

At first, he thought of the many things he could do while he was bored. At first, he remade his bed, which had become wrinkled under the attack of the elves. Then he decorated his window with tiny frost figurines, first Bunnymund, then Sandy, and finally Tooth.

Yet 'frost', of course, was his last name, so that little adventure put him back into the clockwork-like doldrums within barely a minute's time. Then he briefly questioned jumping on his bed, which was a task that drove Pitch insane.

Though he had been assaulted by his nightmares, had just been driven underground – well, not quite underground, but underbed, as the fear-feaster managed to reside under all sleeping areas at once – though he thought of North's, or even worse, Mary's annoyed face and he decided that Pitch's torment would come later.

And finally, Jack flopped down onto the bed as hard as he could, smiling briefly as he imagined Pitch getting thwacked in the head with the mattress, and tried to fall asleep.

Sandy, however, found it funny that Jack rarely got visits from the Guardian of Dreams. The magical sand didn't come floating around the teen's head and clog his ears with a comforting silence any time that day – or night.

The only thing that dragged the boy out of bed, who was oddly tired despite being an immortal entity of childhood entertainment, was the call of hunger.

Not only did they require sleep, but, as like most teens, Jack Frost required something to fill his eternally empty stomach.

Did the others have this problem?

Jack trudged lifelessly to the kitchen, like one of those zombies in Jamie's favorite movies. The kitchen was one of the largest rooms in the palace, crammed full of cooking tools ranging from the average fork to mechanical (or, in a Guardian's eyes, magical) things that looked like a mix between blenders and food processors.

Mary was in front of the vast oven, pulling out a freshly-animated batch of gingerbread men, who half-saluted the lady as to not make their elbows fall off from stress, and then marched toward a long, tin baking pin, which was already decored with at least a hundred other cookies.

"Ah! Jack! How you sleep?" The woman asked, though she didn't turn her back as she poured another set of cookie dough into the cookie molds. "Help yourself, plenty cookies to go round."

The lady's English was butchered even more in the morning, as mornings required both the conscious efforts of waking up and thinking, and for the Russian inhabitants of the castle, translating.

"Sandy didn't visit," he replied, muffling a yawn with his pale hand. Tears blurred his eyes, and his back cracked.

The boy whirled his staff between his fingers, asking his friend in the wind to pick up a few of the cookies on the leftmost row.

His friend obeyed, carrying four semi-spicy snacks to the teen, who munched mindlessly on the living creatures. They squealed whenever they had their limbs severed by his perfectly white teeth, though they didn't flail like fish out of water when their heads were torn off. Not even cookies could think without heads.

The morning slowly dragged on, Jack not annoyed by last night's punishment, Mary not annoyed at his former crime of sending the elves messages that it was okay to kick one-another when the other was being mean first.

The elves, after all, were slow enough as it was.

Around noon, Jack floated out of the kitchen, past the reindeer stalls, and out into the cold of the day. The sun was shining – for once – against the steep cliff, projecting across the vast plains of snow, causing the light to refract off the glistening white gems and light the world up more.

The wind blew Jack's hair out of his eyes, and he stared out into the open. His breath fogged in front of his face, his hoodie being speckled with the occasional snowflake, which glued itself to the blue jacket for the rest of eternity.

Or until Jack took the sweatshirt off, which deprived the snow of all cold in the area, as the boy acted as something of a magnet for coolness.

The sun rose to the very crest of its journey, then slowly began to slip back into the clutches of the West. The Moon, along with the close friend of all the Guardians, the Moon Man, rose into the sky, barely nothing more than a sliver, yet still demanding all attention from the immortal beings.

Full or not, the Man on the Moon could still project his power throughout the Guardians. In fact, the smaller the moon, the more intensity leaked from the crater-filled face of the man.

Jack's eyes twinkled slightly as the crescent rose higher and higher into the sky.

The boy lifted off the ground, slowly floating into the sky. Ever so slowly, Jack found himself drifting farther up North. He decided that tonight would be a nice night to visit Tooth, but a strong beckoning pulled the boy back to North's castle before he could so much as get a glimpse at the turning point of the world (Jack always accessed Tooth's palace by heading northward. He would never dream of going through the Equator, which would reduce him to nothing more than a pile of snowflakes and a melting wooden staff).

Before he knew it, he flew into the burgundy-red bedroom of North and Mary. The two ancient people were asleep, Mary (not to Jack's surprise) snoring louder than North.

He felt his hair flash brown and his eyes flash back to chocolate. He felt his staff disappear and his old life return. Before he knew it, he was kissing his mother and father goodbye, and as an elf quickly dashed under his foot, he nearly scolded his younger sister. Or what he thought was his younger sister.

And then, he was gone.

Jack was Jack Frost once more, a cold ice spirit, indifferent to any degree of heat shy of making him melt.

"Bye, Mom. Bye Dad. Love you both," he whispered.

And millions of miles away, the Man on the Moon smiled once more.

**A:N: This fic is a sister to "The Mrs. Claus" and "Frozen Winds".**

** And I hope you know that I am discontinuing Insanity for a while. I have terrible writer's block, and each story I come up with has gaping plot holes. If you want to adopt it, PM me. I am very picky about what happens to my works. If, and I am heavy on the if, you readers want me to continue it, I just might keep it going.**

** Anyway, I'd love to start beta-ing stories, so send me whatever.**

** And finally, I want to thank you readers! I love you all, no matter what! Goodbye, my lovelies.**


End file.
